smol talk september

As the lovely late summer sunshine drifts towards Autumn it has been a busy old time at smol! One HUGE focus has been our fab NEW personal care range that's here to revolutionise time spent in the bathroom. We've had so much love for this from you already, thank you for your support, questions and feedback. We've also been hard at work on our Suds in Schools fundraising campaign which so many of you have already helped with. Enough of the intro, let's get #smoltalking

What on earth is this eye-catching set of goodies??? We've only gone and launched a personal care range!

Aside from looking incredible in your bathroom, it's going to revolutionise how we all keep clean. Great news for our bodies and brilliant news for the planet as we look to cut waste, lower carbon and ditch plastic.

It's exactly why the smol revolution got personal. No more pointless ingredients, no more beauty science bullsh*t and no more unnecessary single-use plastic. Just cruelty-free and vegan formulations that cleanse brilliantly and create less waste for the planet.

So what's in the line-up?  

Top of the class is our anti-plastic anti-perspirant. 24 hr cotton fresh protection that’s dermatologically tested and suitable for all skin types… all in a recyclable cardboard case that lasts as long as your deo, not for hundreds of years.

 

Shampoo bars that last twice as long as shampoo bottles. For good hair days with moisturising plant oils and the scent of summer fruits.

A moisturising hand soap bar to make you feel all zen-like; made with lemon verbena and cleansing green tea. No plastic AND it can last 6 x longer than the same weight in liquid soap!

Our smol toothpaste fights cavities, prevents tartar and protects enamel. Unlike most toothpastes… you can recycle the tube. It's aluminium!

smol bamboo toothbrushes are also now available in packs of 6 - fab colours mean you'll never get them mixed up at home :)

All our personal care range is NOW available exclusively to our customers via your online account. The feedback we are getting is incredible so thank you!

You may well dread cleaning fiddly oven racks with their never-ending runs of wire and multiple nooks and crannies… so here’s a nifty hack for sparkling results with minimal effort (and a smol dishwasher tablet!).

step 1: Put on some rubber gloves and individually wrap up your trays/racks in aluminium foil.

step 2: Place a towel on the bottom of your bath or sink and pop the aluminium-wrapped items on top. Add a smol dishwasher tablet on each wrapped item and cover everything with hot water.

step 3: Leave your racks for at least 2 hours (preferably overnight) then drain the water and unwrap everything before rinsing things down. The foil can go in your recycling.

step 4: Return your shining trays and racks to your oven. Job done!

We think the results will speak for themselves. Minimal effort, less chemicals and maximum results, that’s our kind of cleaning! smol things make a big difference.

If you've ever wondered what a Head of Product does then wonder no more because Danny is ours! Let's put him under the spotlight and find out why we should all wash less.

can you give a brief description of your job?
I’m in charge of defining and managing our software development roadmap. For the most part this means deciding what changes we should make to the website and our internal systems to deliver the best possible experience for our customers. We’re a small company with big ambitions so we need to make very good decisions about how we use the resources we’ve got. It’s all about getting the most value for the least cost and working out what’s really going to make a difference.

what’s your favourite smol product and why?
The home bundle. It’s such incredible value and so well put together. My job is all about finding really exciting customer experiences and I think opening up that box with so many great things to try gives new customers the best possible introduction to the whole smol homecare range.

what’s the best bit about your job and working for smol?
At smol we’re not afraid to innovate and do things differently. That means there’s a real creative side to everything we do, both from the point of view of visual design and new experiences for customers. To be involved in making something really new like our recently released smol+plus feature and do it all in house is really satisfying. My favourite thing about smol as a company is that we take our positive mission and ethos as seriously as the business side. You really need both things to work together to make a difference and everyone is so committed to being the best we can be all across the board.

what’s a handy eco-friendly tip you can share for household cleaning?
Don’t overdo it! I think we’re the only company in our market encouraging customers to wash less to save on energy and water use. It’s not healthy or good for the planet to live in too sterile an environment so make a virtue of laziness and don’t clean things that are already clean!

it’s the weekend... where will we find you and what are you doing?
Anything that gets me out of the house! I love climbing, going to live music and comedy. The shift to working mostly from home has been great for family life but I’ve found it makes me value personal interaction with friends and being part of a crowd more than ever.

Our Suds in Schools campaign launched in 2021 to provide mini-laundrettes and free smol laundry capsules for schools around the UK. Some of you might remember or may even have donated (thank you!). Its aim? To help children living in hygiene poverty; giving them crucial access to clean clothing and school uniforms. This is important because kids who can’t keep clean feel humiliated, embarrassed, get bullied and/or shunned, their mental and physical health suffers and their education too. As one teacher summed up:

“It makes me feel for them as they have to fend for themselves and go through so much more just to get to school in the morning compared to other people and then would be made fun of for little things.”

So we’re going again! We want to install EVEN MORE of these mini-laundrettes to help EVEN MORE children. We’d love you to be a part of that if you feel able to make a donation via Crowdfunder. We have all sorts of rewards available by way of thank you, and what's more, all donors will be automatically entered into our Big Suds Raffle! (more on that over on our social pages).

So far we have been able to set up over 50 Suds in Schools sites… and they are really really helping. As one teacher from Liverpool said:

“We are able to wash uniforms when children have accidents. Many of our parents are struggling with gas and electricity so now we can wash and dry uniform.”

Keeping clean should NOT be a luxury and these sites are already helping some of the 3 million plus who find themselves living in hygiene poverty.

We are so close to our target. Whatever you can give is hugely appreciated as every little counts. And as we always say… smol things make a big difference. Thank you.

Plastic is the pits so we've done something about it. An anti-perspirant deodorant in a simple recyclable cardboard case. That's it.

It's going to stop perspiration for 24 hours and it's also going to keep you smelling cotton fresh. But don't all deodorants do this?

Well... no, they don't.

Who knew that sweat itself doesn't have a smell? The odour arises when bacteria come into contact with perspiration under your arms. We can even tell you the culprits name! Staphylococcus hominis, a bacteria which dwells in human armpits. They feed on the odourless chemicals in our sweat, and release a pungent compound that we recognise as body odour.

One way to do battle is try to disguise the smell. A simple deodorant does its best to mask any odours under your arms with fragrance. However, there are limits to their effectiveness and of course they won't guard against wet patches on your clothing.

An anti-perspirant actually decreases how much you sweat in the first place. And they do this by using aluminium compounds to block any sweat from ever reaching the skin. This means the bacteria on your skin never even get the chance to mingle with your sweat. Hey presto… you’ll pass the smell test.

But isn't using an aluminium salt on your skin a health risk?

Nope.

This myth started as an email hoax back in the 1990s when it was stated that stopping sweat from forming under your arms meant you were holding in toxins that could cause cancer.

As Cancer Research states: No, using deodorants, anti-perspirants and body sprays doesn’t cause cancer.

Even if your armpit is right next to your breast tissue, not enough aluminium is absorbed to cause a health concern. According to the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety for the EU, its independent experts in chemistry and toxicology have all concluded aluminium is completely safe for use in anti-perspirants. Its studies found that aluminium is in fact hardly absorbed by the skin at all, including freshly shaved skin, and it is also not stored in the skin.

Good news in the battle against B.O.

Our anti-perspirant keeps you smelling fresh and feeilng dry for 24 hours, it's dermatologically tested, vegan and Leaping Bunny certified. All that and there's no fiddly refills or heavy plastic casing. Just a 100% plastic-free cardboard case that lasts as long as your deo... not for hundreds of years. Phew. 

This is just one of many brilliant reviews we have received around our new smol+plus delivery service. Have you tried it yet?

smol+ is a FREE service that groups your next few orders together (to a minimum total value of £20) and sends them out as one. You’ll enjoy next day DPD delivery that’s fully tracked, fewer deliveries to cut carbon and FREE postage. We’ll recalculate your future deliveries so you don’t have too many or not enough products at one time. It’s simply one delivery that lasts you longer, at no extra cost and with no obligation to smol+ next time if you’d rather not.

As one customer said: I love the fact that I'm just buying what I normally would, it's just coming in one go instead of as single different orders over several weeks. I haven't spent more money - but I get to take advantage of next day fullly tracked delivery.

No wonder our customers have taken to it so strongly.

We'll be back next time with a great update on our annual smol away day and much much more. Don't forget to check out our socials and if you're on Facebook and haven't joined our smol group called smol hacks: tips and tricks - why not? It's amazing, full of well... hacks, tips and tricks along with some very enthusiastic smollers. We'll see you there!